


sunset mouths & sunrise minds

by aijee



Category: iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Anxiety, Growing Up, M/M, Triple Kim - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 06:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11617716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aijee/pseuds/aijee
Summary: “Hanbin?”Jinhwan grins, catlike and amused. “You sound so unsure of your own name.”Hanbin hazards a shrug and says, “I’m a conspiracy theorist at heart. I’m not sure about anything these days.”





	sunset mouths & sunrise minds

**Author's Note:**

> I love Hanbin with my entire soul and dear lord do i want him to find happiness one day

 

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,  
I love you simply, without problems or pride:  
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving.”

Pablo Neruda, _100 Love Sonnets_

  

* * *

  

There are a lot of things Hanbin predicted to come out of his parents’ divorce: an argument over money shares, but not over custody; balancing odd jobs to support what’s left to be supported; doors becoming cheap curtains to hide his mother’s stormiest days.

What Hanbin didn’t predict is the move back to his mother’s hometown. It’s not primitive by any means, not even rural, but “big city” certainly wasn’t flashing in neon-light reminders the way it does in Seoul. Hanbin somehow misses the congestion of the city, but here there are more spaces to fit and to fit in, more air to breathe and more freedom to air themselves. After a week, his mother looks ten years happier.

The next-door neighbors greet Hanbin’s modest family of himself, his mother, and Hanbyul so warmly, as if a headcount of three was equivalent to more than a dozen. There’s a mini feast made from local sources, wine-addled advice, more love than Hanbin thought possible from people the same species as his father. (He will learn later that some are simply built with an infinite capacity for love.)

During the dinner, one of neighbor family’s sons bumps into Hanbin on the way to the bathroom. Instead of apologizing, the boy, who looks near Hanbin’s age, gives Hanbin a choice of two names to call him by – either Jiwon or Bobby – and at first the fact that Jiwon-Bobby has an English name is intimidating. Hanbin swallows down the dry quiet in his throat.

“Jiwon,” Hanbon settles for, unsure of where to rest his eyes until a bright, crooked smile greets Hanbin and makes the decision for him. “Does it matter either way?”

“Not really,” says Jiwon. His eyes are fully arched, but how could they not with a smile so penetrating? “But usually people pick Bobby. Got no idea why. Maybe they think it sounds cooler than my Korean name, but I don’t get it.”

“Me neither.”

“Y’know, there’s only one other person who also picked Jiwon.”

“Who?” Hanbin doesn’t know why he asked since he literally knows no one else in town.

“I’ll introduce you guys,” Jiwon answers but doesn’t really. “I think you two’re gonna get along great. Come back tomorrow?”

Hanbin thinks of all the cleaning he still has to do. He thinks of the clothes he has to unbox and the lightbulbs he has to get at the nearby convenience store. He thinks of his single mother and the reverent way she looks at her getting-older son and just-born daughter, like she loves them beyond her body’s capabilities and wants them to live the lives she couldn’t.

“Sure,” Hanbin says, a nascent smile on his face that looks identical to his mother’s. Jiwon seems pleased to see it, and Hanbin lets himself consider the thought that he’s made a friend.

Tomorrow comes along sooner than Hanbin anticipated, at least after spending an entire night and a small fraction of the early morning going in circles about first impressions, or the irrational fear of getting stuff stuck in his braces without noticing then being haunted by this life-altering episode for at least forty years. There are snakes in his stomach and mice in his brain, and he wishes he could hold himself up as brave and as strong as his mom.

Jiwon’s living room looks different in the daylight, without the bubble and pop of his parents, but the smell of citrus candles and fresh herbs still stains the floors and walls like a guardian shadow. For a precious moment, everything in Hanbin calms down.

But “moment” is the word because, when Hanbin looks at the couch, his breath is whisked far away, back to the big city it apparently still missed.

“Hanbin, this is Jinhwan,” says Jiwon with a generous sweep of the arm. “He’s a year older than me, and I’m a year older than you, so that makes him your hyung.”

The person named Jinhwan pft's at them, mostly at Jiwon. “You make it sound like he’s starting work at some big-wig company.”

Jinhwan is about as small as Hanbin, if not slightly bigger, but he has this otherworldly sense of presence that siphons the air from Hanbin’s lungs and fills it back to the brim. The voice supplied by the body doesn’t quite sound like butter or chocolate, but more like a strange mixture between Christmas piano melodies and the chorus of summertime cicadas. His face looks soft, but his sharp eyes tell Hanbin otherwise, and there’s an almost territorial artfulness to the way he’s draped over the overstuffed seats.

Even the manner with which Jinhwan reaches for the soda bottle on the coffee table is naturally languid, like God was being extra generous with muscle control when he created Jinhwan. “Call me what you want, it doesn’t really bother me,” Jinhwan says, then sips, then sighs. “As long as you’re not going to murder me in my sleep and you aren’t better than me at DDR, then we’re chill.”

“How’re those two requirements on the same level?” asks Jiwon, amused.

“Both involve life and death. Duh,” is the matter-of-fact answer.

Hanbin’s feet and fingers feel like white noise.

“You look like Medusa just looked you in the eye.” Jinhwan snorts when Hanbin jumps a little at the realization he’s being addressed. “Don’t be such a stiffy, Han…”

“Hanbin?”

Jinhwan grins, catlike and amused. “You sound so unsure of your own name.”

Hanbin hazards a shrug and says, “I’m a conspiracy theorist at heart. I’m not sure about anything these days.”

Jinhwan pauses before tipping his head back and laughing, loud and full and even more amused than before. Like his voice, the sound of Jinhwan’s laughter is like winter and summer merged together.

“You’re an interesting kid, Hanbin. Get over here and let me kick your ass at Mario Kart.”

“Is that also a requirement?”

“No,” says Jinhwan, eyes gleaming. “It’s a challenge.”

 

 

 

Hanbin learns that everything about Jinhwan is a challenge.

Jinhwan knows the right language to drive Jiwon (who is admittedly quite gullible) into doing stupid things, like stealing panties from a clothes line or playing tag with the army of seabirds at the bay. Jinhwan somehow convinces Hanbin that the currency in town is in seafood, and gets Hanbin to piggy-back ride him to the gasoline station just to buy a single pack of chips. It’d be rude to call Jinhwan manipulative, so Hanbin picks “convincing” instead.

It has something to do with the fire in Jinhwan’s eyes, Hanbin thinks. It’s warm and dangerously sparkling, some combination of a fireplace and one of those crackly things people use on New Year’s. But Jinhwan is also softly aware of everything around him, a connoisseur of showing Hanbin amazing parts of life he wouldn’t have noticed if Jinhwan didn’t point them out first. If “I bet you can’t do this” is like a second skin to Jinhwan, then “Isn’t that beautiful?” is the first.

Surely, it’s impossible for so much to be squeezed into one person. But that kind of person exists, Hanbin learns, right beside him, always bursting with life and love and laughter.

Unlike Hanbin, who takes each day slowly and with savor, Jinhwan’s head is full of tomorrows. As the human embodiment of “live fast” (and hopefully not “die young”), Jinhwan pulses with anticipation for the future, whisking everyone into his easy but quick-fire pace. Hanbin barely gets his shoes tied before he’s dragged through Jinhwan’s premier list of town hotspots.

There’s the arcade teeming with blinking lights and decades-old machines, and then the PC bang where too-young teens look at porn or game till the clock strikes way-past-curfew o’clock. There’s the bustling marketplace where everyone knows everybody and if you didn’t then you’d know soon, and then the smoothie shop near the boats that serves the best strawberry and banana smoothie, apparently, but Jiwon strongly argues the superiority of the orange mango one. Hanbin is forced to try both, but he ends up liking the kiwi tropical special the most. No consensus is ever reached.

Jinhwan’s favorite place by far, however, is the abandoned docks at the far end of town. Five years ago, all the boats moved closer to the hustle and bustle of the town for the sake of convenience. But the wood of the old docks is too old to be reused, with its blankets of seaweed and barnacles and other bits of ocean life stubbornly clinging on, so the docks are just there, still standing to welcome an armada that will never arrive.

The three of them are sitting at the end of the biggest dock, the one furthest from shore, with pants rolled up and toes barely touching the rippling water.

“Everyone says that sunsets are most beautiful when you watch them from a beach or on rooftops,” says Jinhwan. The straw of his empty smoothie cup rests on his bottom lip, occasionally teased by his small, pearly whites. “I beg to differ. Isn’t it more beautiful here?”

Not that Hanbin has been on any beaches or rooftops to compare, but it’s unquestionably beautiful, almost unreal, watching the sky from where they are. The majesty of it all is nothing like Hanbin has ever seen in the city; towering castles of steel and glass seem minuscule against the vast planes of dusty pinks, warm yellow-oranges, with soft purples whispered in between like sorbets melting together.

There is something devastatingly poignant about the way the untouchable and open sky meets the scary, dark unknown of the ocean. They stretch out infinitely in both directions, dedicated to staying side-by-side forever.

On Hanbin’s left, Jiwon is stripped of his tank top, now a blanket to lie on with hands behind his head and eyes on the verge of closing. On Hanbin’s right, Jinhwan raises the edge of his T-shirt to his brow, swiping away at a wet gleam that greets Hanbin as quickly as the damp skin of Jinhwan’s stomach does. Hanbin finds one show of skin far more throat-constricting than the other.

“How old are you again, Hanbin?” asks Jinhwan. Hanbin’s eyes quickly abort and avert.

“Fifteen,” he answers.

“Ah, you’re still so young.”

“You’re only seventeen. You’re not that old.”

But it’s an unkind number, Hanbin knows. Seventeen is worse than sixteen in that the transition from childhood is long gone, but adulthood is still too far a reach for there to even be a reach. It’s where uncertainties really set in, where fears and realities blur together. Hanbin isn’t excited to turn seventeen one day.

“Sometimes I feel old,” Jinhwan says, eyes glazed forward. “There’s always so much to do, but so little time. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever get to do everything I want to before I die.”

“What do you want to do before you die?”

“A lot of things.”

“Like what?”

Jinhwan extends his arm and holds up his hand, fingers spread like he’s inspecting them. The shadow of his hand curves to the contours of his face. “Sing in the rain,” he says, “write a thousand poems. Take a plane without knowing the destination. Have at least ten cats at a time. Ask a pet store how I can grow birds from bird seed. Sleep under a cherry blossom tree. Run naked through a field. Go through a wormhole. Watch a Big Bang concert. Vomit from drinking three bottles of soju but not four. Break a bone. Fall in love. Get my heart broken. See the world.”

“Why all the bad stuff?”

“Because the bad stuff makes you appreciate the good stuff more.”

The look Jinhwan gives him is silent but expectant, like he wants Hanbin to say something that will push the conversation further. But Hanbin isn’t that good with words or confidence yet, so he can’t do anything besides stare back at the maze in Jinhwan’s eyes.

He suddenly registers a pinky finger on his, the soft forwardness highlighted by Jiwon’s harsh snores dissipating in the air like cigarette smoke. Hanbin doesn’t turn his head, so Jinhwan turns it for him, gentle touch with firm hand curling against the sweaty strands on Hanbin’s cheek, then his neck, then his cheek again. By sheer force of will, Hanbin keeps himself still.

Up close, Jinhwan is both even more beautiful and even more terrifying than the sky and sea put together. His skin is tinted with the colors of heaven, small imperfection under his right eye reminding Hanbin of the existence of gravity and oxygen. Just when Hanbin thinks their faces are impossibly close, every newborn second proves him wrong. This feels like a lifetime, but it is a lifetime bound by a single moment so small against the largeness of everything else.

Like the sunset, the kiss is quick and painless. It tastes like the strawberry and banana smoothie Hanbin still doesn’t find as good as the kiwi tropical special. Like adventure, and warmth, and everything he imagined Jinhwan’s lips would taste like – a challenge in all its piquant, electrifying entirety.

When Jinhwan gets up to wake Jiwon from his nap, the air around Hanbin becomes cooler, emptier, more boundless and open to the rest of the world. It’s as if the sun disappeared, leaving the plants and animals it shined upon without warmth or guidance even though Jinhwan is still close by, chasing Jiwon in circles and ready to strike with sweaty tank top in hand.

As he walks down the dock, Hanbin can feel the stories in the sand and in the atmosphere, whether from centuries ago or the one he’s writing in his head right now. Sweetness, bitterness, salty winds. It’s all here, in this modest, vibrant town.

 

 

 

“You were out for a while,” his mother tells him over dinner. Her tone is unreadable.

“I was by the abandoned docks,” he replies, not old enough to keep his tone unreadable, too. He ends up sounding anxious. “With Jiwon and one of his friends.”

His mother sighs, barely-there smile still marked with laugh lines Hanbin could recognize blind. “I’m really glad you’re having fun, darling, and that you’ve found friends,” she says, and he knows she’s being sincere, “but with school coming up, you need to remember your priorities. Don’t get too swept up, okay? It’s easy to be that way at your age.”

Hanbin vaguely recalls a tale she once told him of a young princess falling in love with a young prince and vice versa. In the end, both were too young to realize they’d fallen for the wrong reasons, the wrong person, the wrong kind of love. He can’t remember the ending.

Without warning, Hanbyul starts crying, wails loud and piercing like a needle to a water balloon, and Hanbin scoops her into his arms until she calms down.

 

 

 

The only school in town is impressive despite not being funded by absurdly rich families desperate to imprint their names in history somewhere. (They were always Hanbin’s least favorite city folk.) The hallways are clean, the teachers polite and professional, and, while the scratchy uniforms leave much to be desired, the students are generally well-kempt and mindful of their own business. But that doesn’t make them quiet. Hanbin discovers that most dream of going to the city – “to make it big,” they like to say – with ambitions half-baked in entertainment and fully burnt in fame.

He doesn’t tell people he’s a city boy. He hasn’t lived long enough in the city to develop that kind of aura, but blending in is a skill the city never gave him.

Hanbin acknowledges that he’s a bit weird. He spaces in only when called on, but somehow correctly answers the question asked. Kids hear him counting under his breath sometimes and it freaks them out. And then he gets scary when people tease him about his mother and not-there father. But Hanbin is handsome and clever and athletic, only quiet, so no one really bothers him enough for it to be a problem.

For the first few weeks, he’s alone but not lonely. He learned the difference pretty early in his life. His thoughts keep him company, like a private entourage that always agrees with him, even if they nag him sometimes about finding Jinhwan and Jiwon every lunch period because eating alone can be sad. It’s uncommon for middle schoolers to hang out with high schoolers, so he doesn’t try it.

But the three still hang out outside of school. Mostly on the weekends because Hanbin has to take care of Hanbyul while their mother works. Mostly at Jiwon’s house if they needed to be in one, or at the PC bang with Jiwon’s latest obsession with Overwatch. Jinhwan doesn’t mention the kiss. Hanbin probably just hallucinated it.

“Hyung isn’t the type to think much about the past, does he?” comments Jiwon. He and Hanbin watch Jinhwan, in the middle of a polite conversation with his ex-girlfriend near the drinks fridge. “It’s so hard to not be stuck in the past. I don’t know how he does it.”

“Me neither,” says Hanbin. He forces himself to not bite his lip too hard.

A few months of trials and errors eventually trickle by, and Hanbin feels like he’s getting the hang of it. Both his mother and sister are becoming more confident and lovable each day. A couple of girls and guys, each belonging to their own friend groups, talk to Hanbin occasionally, so it’s not so lonely at school anymore. Lunches are still a different story, but it’s all happening at a speed Hanbin can digest.

 

 

 

Of course, Jinhwan has to step in and throw Hanbin back into the flames of what he imagined would be a relic of summer’s tail end. He should have known that Jinhwan, of all people, wouldn’t settle for being a memory, so he makes himself as known to Hanbin as possible.

“Hey Hanbin,” Jinhwan would say when Hanbin delivers papers to the high school office. “Hanbin-ah!” Jinhwan would yell from a window when Hanbin is reading in the courtyard. “Nice shot, Hanbin!” Jinhwan would congratulate after Hanbin shoots a goal during P.E.

Jinhwan drags Hanbin to eat with him, Jiwon, and some other boys in the cafeteria during lunch with absolutely no regard for implicit social hierarchies. He invites Hanbin to learn some dance moves for an upcoming high school festival, or at least watch the practice when Hanbin shyly refuses; “like hell you will, you’re going and that’s that” sounds less like a threat in Hanbin’s ears when his heartbeat is suddenly stuck there. But, among the dozens of red flares Jinhwan shoots into Hanbin’s face, possibly the worst thing Jinhwan does is shove a cardboard box of toddler-sized dresses into Hanbin’s arms one glossy afternoon.

“These used to belong to my sister when she was your sister’s age,” Jinhwan explains. Autumn may be maturing into winter, but Hanbin doesn’t feel cold at all with Jinhwan looking at him so warmly and excitedly like that. “I thought she threw them out, so it took a while to find them. They’re also not in the best shape, I think? My sister was wild as a kid. But if there’s anything you need fixed up, my mom’s a seamstress and she told me she’d be happy to help you guys. Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

Hanbin blinks at Jinhwan, so quiet that even the winds blowing through the trees boast louder, strong enough to blow a dreamy, airy feeling straight through Hanbin’s body. He feels like flying, or floating, or falling, or everything all at once if he really thinks about it. Maybe if he stays as still as possible, time won’t move and he could stay in this moment a little longer. His body still braces itself for the next moment Jinhwan is probably hungry to snatch.

But Jinhwan doesn’t do that, at least not in the way Hanbin expected.

Like a classic tragedy, what happens next does so in three acts. First, Jinhwan looks around to survey their surroundings; Hanbin doesn’t follow, eyes fixed on Jinhwan, but the slight nod Jinhwan gives himself is enough to tell Hanbin that there aren’t many students nearby. Second, Jinhwan pushes Hanbin behind the giant tree beside them, simultaneously taking the box from Hanbin’s hands and setting it on the ground. Third, Jinhwan clasps the back of Hanbin’s neck with a fire and sureness Hanbin only thought belonged to the sun before he sets Hanbin’s lips alight.

When they separate, Hanbin starts counting under his breath in the weak hope that the monotony will keep the bomb in chest from bursting. He’s too young to die from something as pathetic as lovesickness.

Jinhwan kisses him again, gentle and soft, and the rest of the world around Hanbin explodes.

It feels like an eon or two by the time Hanbin is brave enough to open his eyes and observe the disaster. When he does, Jinhwan simply stares at him, face a perfect, blank canvas in stark contrast to the labyrinth in his eyes. Hanbin realizes that the two of them aren’t hiding behind a tree like secret lovers, that Jinhwan didn’t move the box to the ground and that Jinhwan never kissed him.

“Are you okay?” Jinhwan asks him, confusion and worry new obstacles to his complex gaze. He settles a hand on Hanbin’s forehead, and Hanbin concludes that mankind will ultimately be its own downfall. “Are you sick? You look pretty sick.”

“A little,” is all Hanbin says.

 

 

 

 

Hanbin manages to slip through Christmas and New Year’s without having to see Jinhwan in person, though the clothes Hanbyul sports these days remain a cruel reminder of what was and what couldn’t be. Hanbin ends up leaving some pork belly as presents at Jiwon’s house with a hastily-written card for both Jiwon and Jinhwan, and that’s all they see of Hanbin until January coldly rolls around. At least every “Why is your face so red?” can finally be answered with “It’s just the weather.”

His mother keeps reminding him to start thinking about college, but Hanbin has a hard time looking at the future when dealing with present day is so hard already. Individually, harboring feelings for Jinhwan and nearing the conclusion of puberty are horrible, cruel beasts. Together, they are the teenage equivalent of enduring a mental apocalypse.

Equations and Korean idioms quickly turn into languages near unrecognizable when the feel of Jinhwan’s mouth or the slopes of his face are more familiar. Hanbin doesn’t realize his uncomfortably long stares at Jinhwan until the lunch bell jars his head from its sleep in the clouds. He’s pretty sure he spent an entire school day just thinking of how elegant Jinhwan’s fingers would be around a pencil. Or a smoothie cup. Or Hanbin’s own hand.

“You like him,” says Jiwon to Hanbin one night. They’re studying in his room, Jinhwan absent for whatever vague reason he tends to provide. “Jinhwan, I mean.”

Hanbin wants to deny it with every fiber of his being. He wants to swear that his heart doesn’t beat fast enough to race horses every time Jinhwan is near him, that the only counting Hanbin can do anymore is that of Jinhwan’s teeth whenever he smiles because there’s no way thirty-two could be so blinding. But Hanbin also wants to run to the rooftop of the tallest building and shout every confession that’s accumulated under his ribcage. The world is so much smaller now that he lives in a place so quaint, but that makes letting the world know he loves Jinhwan much easier because _that’s what it is, isn’t it? Love?_

This is way past simple likes and like-likes and any other childish iteration of affection Hanbin sees in his mother’s cheesy soap operas. He doesn’t know when the feeling blew up into love, turned into an unending cycle of _I want to be with him forever_ every moment Hanbin spends apart from Jinhwan. But he thinks it probably started growing when he stupidly accepted the challenge of being a part of Jinhwan’s life.

After a long spell of silence, all that comes out of Hanbin’s mouth is, “Is it that obvious?” The look Jiwon gives him is answer enough. “Does he know?”

“He may look smart enough to rule the school with a pinky finger, but he’s too dumb to notice anything like that unless you say it to his face.”

“Oh.”

“Are you going to say it to his face?”

“I don’t know,” Hanbin admits. He curls into himself, like he wants to disappear into nothingness even though Jiwon is the least judgmental person ever. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship or something.”

“Don’t worry,” Jiwon says reassuringly. “Crushes at this age are like that. You’ll get over it.”

But that’s the thing. Hanbin doesn’t get over it. No bridge in the world could help Hanbin get over whatever saturates his insides with butterflies before burning them alive every time Jinhwan so much as bumps their elbows together.

Every night and on every star in the sky, Hanbin prays for his stupid iron bastion of feelings to wave its white flag by the start of the March semester, and it almost works right up until June. It's a month that slaps Hanbin in the face and then some because Jinhwan shows up to school with fresh piercings dangling from his delicate earlobes. For solid two weeks, Hanbin doesn’t stop thinking about the dips of Jinhwan’s ears; hormones make him think about biting them and the noises Jinhwan would make in response.

The praying does something, at least, because Hanbin’s commendable final exam results in July are nothing short of a miracle with a brain so resolutely filled with the one person giving Hanbin the best dreams and the worst nightmares.

“Congratulations, you freaking genius,” Jinhwan tells Hanbin at the same dock they kissed at, but Hanbin doesn’t trust himself enough to believe what he remembers anymore. “You finished your second year of middle school, and your first year here, unscathed. Kind of. That’s pretty amazing, don’t you think?”

It’s a milestone in its own right, but it’s nothing much to celebrate when Hanbin is so lost he can barely function enough to express gratitude. Jinhwan hasn’t earned a “thank you” for all the pain he’s worth, but he sure as hell doesn’t deserve something so simple, either.

 

 

 

With the earful Hanbin’s mother has been giving him about studying, he’s disappointed but unsurprised to be dropped off at his grandparents’ place on the first day of summer to study at a hagwon for the rest of it.

Spending the entire summer break trying to understand how Jinhwan operates instead of studying is difficult enough. Hanbin has mixed feelings about Jinhwan’s uncanny control over his own existence, zipping in and out of presence with such ease, as if the fabric of time and space is as simple to use as Google Maps. Life with Jinhwan is an enigma in a nutshell, but, if there's something Hanbin is sure of, it's that not even death could make him let go of the way his name sounds in Jinhwan’s voice.

Then things get extraordinarily worse when Hanbin’s brain has to go and give his body the green light to sprout in every direction possible. Everything around him gets smaller when he gets bigger, and he doesn’t like it. Hiding places aren’t as accommodating anymore. There is more of himself to take care of now. His growth is an inaccurate mirror of how disastrous and underdeveloped his emotions are.

Even with the chains on his teeth finally removed, Hanbin can’t speak without flubbing his words around Jinhwan. The different atmosphere of looks he’s receives don’t change how irreparably gone he is on the effortless silk of Jinhwan’s hair. Hanbin is still the same mess of skin and bones and feelings as he was before, just a little (or a lot) more stretched out.

On the first day back, Jinhwan asks, “Since when were you taller than me?” as Hanbin approaches him and Jiwon by the school gates. “Shit, I really am gonna be the shortest out of us.”

He says it without venom or envy, not like most guys when height is so easy of a competition to make. Jinhwan speaks with just the same flavor of amusement – strawberry and banana and melting sunsets – Hanbin can never get tired of savoring every time he gets a taste.

This year, some of Jinhwan’s baby fat has faded away, sure, but that smile is as gleaming and untethered as before, and Jinhwan is as gentle and softly glowing and warm like the home he’s made this town feel for Hanbin.

“Puberty does wonders,” Hanbin tries, somehow not stuttering. “You should try it sometime, hyung.”

“Puberty clearly doesn't give you manners,” shoots back Jinhwan. “You should learn them sometime, kid.”

 

 

 

In September or October, Hanbin isn’t sure, he watches Jinhwan and Jiwon fight for the first time.

They’ve been bumping heads for a while already, but never before has Jinhwan been so openly ticked at Jiwon. Most recently, it’s at Jiwon’s adamancy in turning down every girl that approaches him.

“They built up so much courage to confess to you,” Jinhwan argues, lips dusted with crumbs and shiny with grease from the croissant he ate. Hanbin wants to clean it up, especially now that his arms are long enough to reach. “Do you know how much strength that takes? Do you know how brave it is, telling someone you like them? I can’t imagine what they feel after you’re so brutal with them.”

“What, so you want me to just date all of them?” retaliates Jiwon. It’s the first time Hanbin’s seen him remotely cross.

“No. But you could give them a chance.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Hanbin can’t recall whether Jinhwan ever asked Jiwon what he meant, or whether Jiwon ever provided an explanation.

 

 

 

The middle of December arrives with more force than Hanbin would appreciate. Jiwon refuses to let Hanbin escape Christmas and New Year’s two years in a row, especially after Jiwon literally wrestles Hanbin’s birthday out of him (“Your birthday is in December and you didn’t tell us?!” “I never came up in conversation—” “Shut up while I put you in a headlock you _ass.”_ ), but at least Jiwon lets Hanbin merge everything together into one small party between the three of them.

Doing Secret Santa after midterms seems dumb with so short a guest list, so Jinhwan and Jiwon agree, despite Hanbin’s usual protests, to both give Hanbin a present, get something small for each other, and let Hanbin do whatever he wants as long as the total cost doesn’t exceed twenty thousand won.

When they ask Hanbin what he’d like, he says, “I want to go to the dock after the gift exchange.” Jiwon thinks it’s a terrible idea when winter is returning with a vengeance, and Jinhwan says it doesn’t cost money so it doesn’t count. Hanbin doesn’t know what else to suggest, so defaults to, “Surprise me.”

Jiwon fails terrifically at being surprised when Jinhwan hands him the two latest volumes of Attack on Titan, and Jinhwan is absurdly excited at the used Big Bang light stick Jiwon bought from eBay. Hanbin ends up being mushy by getting them all matching Pokémon phone charms. Jiwon doesn’t shut up about how cute his Bulbasaur is, going on for ages about how underrated grass types are and other nonsensical things.

Jinhwan holds his Charmander up to the light, contemplative and silent, the same way he held his hand to the sun and stared at his fingers. He’s every definition of fiery if Hanbin’s ever heard one, so the match-up should make perfect sense. But Jinhwan stares at the charm longer than Hanbin anticipates, with a gaze so seemingly faraway that Hanbin wonders if Jinhwan’s thoughts are as off the plane of reality as they look.

For the gravest, most gut-wrenching moment, Hanbin guesses that Jinhwan hates it until he hears, “I love it. Thank you.”

The words immediately spread like a wildfire of overly sensitive nerves and goosebumps across every waking inch of Hanbin’s skin. God, the things he’d do anything to hear those words again.

It turns out that Jiwon and Jinhwan coordinated for Hanbin’s present. Jiwon’s contribution ends up being some sturdy boots to replace the worn-out, hand-me-down leather things Hanbin received from his mother. Jiwon’s gift is amazingly the perfect size, and Hanbin thanks Jiwon profusely.

Then comes Jinhwan’s contribution. Hanbin promises he tries to prepare himself, but his efforts are ultimately wasted when he finds out what’s on the other side of the tissue paper.

It’s a new and stylish, very likely expensive bomber jacket that matches the boots to a tee with its sleek material and identical coloring. But what stuns Hanbin the most is how Jinhwan-like the jacket is, as if the only thing closer to resembling to Jinhwan is the person himself. Hanbin doesn’t know why the jacket seems that way, but Jinhwan couldn’t have possibly purchased it without feeling the same, and the thought of wearing a piece of him makes Hanbin’s heartbeat want to run at the speed of light and never come back.

“I know it won’t protect you from the cold very well,” acknowledges Jinhwan, sheepish yet unapologetic. “But I thought you’d like the style.”

Jiwon scoffs. “It looks more like something you would wear, hyung.”

“It’s something I think Hanbin could wear too. To replace the hoodie he’d lost last year.”

Hanbin didn’t lose it, exactly, and they all know. Two older boys had stolen it from Hanbin’s cubby at the beginning of the first semester and then cut it up with scissors. The boys were effectively reprimanded, and no one dared causing another scene like that after the embarrassment (word travels fast in small towns, after all), but Hanbin didn’t have another jacket other than his winter coat. Until now.

For once, Jinhwan looks nervous at Jiwon’s innocent quip, indomitable bravery doused by the anticipation of Hanbin’s response. Hanbin doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to say anything. Words don’t seem adequate enough to express just how grateful he is and how much every cell of his body is filled with nothing but a renewed sense of sickly sweet infatuation. For all the extra mass he’d gained, Hanbin doesn’t think any part of him would be enough for someone as beautiful as Jinhwan.

Hanbin is extremely careful to not make any accidental confessions, so the only thing he can do is hope his face says everything that “I love it so much, thank you” cannot. Jinhwan is still as hard to gauge as ever, but Hanbin might as well be satisfied with the nod he’s given before he bursts an artery mulling over what it means.

Jinhwan urges him to wear the jacket, and Hanbin is helpless to oblige. Then the rest of the night goes on.

 

 

 

It’s almost five AM when Hanbin wakes up to someone shaking him. It takes him several minutes to realize it’s Jinhwan, with Jiwon still fully submissive to the throes of sleep.

Hanbin mumbles something incomprehensible, probably a refusal to get up or the suggestion to go back to bed, but his body has always had other plans than his head because he’s up and out the door before he’s actually awake. A cool rush of air sprints past him, but it isn’t as bone-chilling as he expected at this hour. Hanbin hopes that Jinhwan had somehow helped him into the jacket because it’s too embarrassing to think he’d fallen asleep wearing it.

When the gears click, it doesn’t take long for Hanbin to fathom what’s happening – to recognize the path they’re taking and the hand dragging his own towards the origin point this all started at. They’re going to watch the sunrise at the abandoned docks at the end of town, hand in hand, as the heavens open their sleepy eyes.

Jinhwan doesn’t say anything on the way, nor does he say anything when they get there. He always has first command of everything, be it over words or the core of Hanbin’s heart, so Hanbin is afraid to say anything lest he upset whatever’s been so precariously balanced between them.

“Do you think the sky we saw yesterday is the same as the sky we see today and tomorrow?” Jinhwan asks. Hanbin’s fingers twitch, and Jinhwan merely bears down on them a little more. “It’s kind of scary to think that we’re changing so much when the rest of the world isn’t.”

“I guess.”

Hanbin closes his eyes and focuses on the warmth seeping from Jinhwan’s skin onto his. It’s the first time Hanbin is so aware of his hand and its placement relative to the rest of himself. He counts each of Jinhwan’s fingers in his mind over and over, never reaching any number greater than or less than five. It’s destructive as it is reassuring.

“Remember the first time we were here? Last summer?” asks Jinhwan. He scoots closer, shoulders only centimeters away from bumping. Hanbin feels sticky and gross with things he can’t voice, or would rather die before voicing. He hopes that the colors of the sunrise will wash everything away so he can feel like a normal person for once. “Jiwon fell asleep. He was snoring so loudly that even the birds flew away.”

Hanbin opens his eyes and swallows. “When did you meet him?”

“More like when did he meet _me?”_ Jinhwan laughs, the sound far more intoxicating than any mouthful of alcohol Hanbin has ever had the luck of tasting. “It was very much the same situation as you and him, his family inviting yours for dinner as mine did to his, when he moved here a few years ago. Except our situation was much simpler.”

“How so?”

“There wasn’t a third person to make things more complicated.”

Crying is not an option, Hanbin tells himself, so he doesn’t. Not when Jinhwan is holding his hand and looking at him so gently, as if a simple glance could caress Hanbin’s worries to ashes.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For being a third person who makes things more complicated.” Hanbin says it loudly, almost like a whine and it feels as embarrassing as it sounds. The stickiness and grossness from before suddenly rise like a geyser in his throat, desperately seeking asylum in the open air, but Hanbin keeps it down with all the energy he has left. “I didn’t– I don’t mean to make things more difficult.”

The déjà vu of Jinhwan’s hand on Hanbin’s cheek, turning his face to look straight at Jinhwan’s, is painful. Hanbin shuts his eyes as tight as he can. Maybe the darkness of the back of his eyelids will swallow him up and he can disappear for real, but light somehow still peeks through, white-yellow and red and blistering like the sun, stubborn like Jinhwan.

“I wasn’t talking about you, silly,” Jinhwan murmurs. He’s so close that every inhale is mixed with every exhale. “I was talking about me.”

Hanbin dares one eye open. His muscles are so incredibly tense, rigid and transparent like glass, so anything more than that would break him. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, I know I’ve been making your life harder,” says Jinhwan, smile smile _smile_ so there and lovely that Hanbin opens his other eye to fully witness it. “I know that your mother has been wanting you to focus on school, college, the practical side of the future. I know that you’ve struggled and still struggle through a lot, probably even more with my free-spirited ass bossing you around. You’re such a wonderful and good kid, Hanbin, but me being around makes things so complicated for you, huh?”

That wasn’t at all what Hanbin thought he’d hear, but making any expectations about Jinhwan is always the first mistake he makes.

Jinhwan rests his forehead on Hanbin’s, looking through his eyelashes to stare Hanbin down with searing curiosity. “Why did you think I meant you?”

“I want you to kiss me,” Hanbin confesses immediately, exhaustion a potent thing to loosen anyone’s mouth. He feels like his insides are being eaten alive, but his stomach better not touch his guts before he has the chance to spill them. “I want to kiss you. I want to hold you, hold hands like this, hold you close. I want you to keep telling me things will be okay without actually saying it. I want you to eat every meal of yesterday, today, and tomorrow with me. I want to you to know how much it hurts to be me sometimes, but also how amazing it’s turned out when you’re around. I want you, I want you to want me, and I’m really, really sorry for that.”

The budding tears in Hanbin’s eyes don’t blossom fully enough to reach his lap, especially with Jinhwan’s thumbs expertly flicking them away. Hanbin’s body is holding on to his pride as desperately as he is.

“You should never _ever_ feel sorry for wanting to be with someone,” Jinhwan says.

“But it’s wrong. This is wrong.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Because– because,” Hanbin stammers out a breath to convince himself he’s calmed down, even when his chest is about to collapse on itself. “Because you’re just…so out there and beyond. Beyond me. You’re so strong and vibrant, so full of life and love and everything in between. And I’m so…not.”

“The only thing you’re not is not confident enough in yourself,” Jinhwan says good-naturedly, his own body experienced with patience. “If you have any faith in me – which I have a strong inkling you do – then you’ll believe me when I say that you’re incredibly brave, persistent, funny, creative, stupidly funny and every other color in the rainbow. You’re just as vibrant, if not more so. You’re so many things that would take me ages to say, things you can’t see yourself.”

“That’s because I’ve only been looking in one direction.”

Jinhwan chuckles, low and uncharacteristically quiet, as if trying to shield their conversation from invisible ghosts eavesdropping on them. The rising sun has tinted Jinhwan heavenly like before, every version of bright and warm and _Jinhwan_ Hanbin has ever dreamed of. But this isn’t a dream. Hanbin blinks his eyes over and over again, waiting to return to the living room floor he’d fallen asleep on last night, but every time he wakes up, all he hears is their soft breathing sloshing together with the song of the sea. All there is before him is Jinhwan’s face, unthinkably beautiful and near his own.

“You said you wanted me to kiss you,” whispers Jinhwan. “Is that still true?”

“It always will be,” Hanbin breathes before they’re kissing, for real, under the fading stars and waking sun.

 

 

 

The second semester of Hanbin’s last year in middle school carries on. He doesn’t know if he and Jinhwan are really dating even though Jinhwan keeps saying they are, but they kiss sometimes, or cuddle when no one is looking. Jiwon catches on quickly, but doesn’t say anything rude, only looks mildly disgusted whenever Jinhwan purposely commits too hard to the PDA. Hanbin doesn’t want their relationship to be a show for people, so Jinhwan stops overdoing it.

“That’s a first,” Jiwon says.

“What is?” asks Hanbin.

“Jinhwan listening to anyone.”

The person in question throws a plastic candy wrapper at Jiwon, but doesn’t deny the observation.

Everyone tells Hanbin that he grows more handsome every day. His mother tells him he’s speaking more often, and more loudly, too. He smiles more, takes care of his appearance more, is more careful of his studies – Hanbin is just so much _more_ these days, like he’s finally growing into his limbs and understanding how to operate the parts of himself he didn’t know existed. Even Hanbyul is absolutely enraptured with him, arms searching for Hanbin whenever he gets home from school.

“What’s gotten into you?” his mother asks him one day, seeing him off instead of the other way around.

“I dunno,” he responds, adjusting his collar until it’s crisp and even. “Just looking forward to each day, I guess.”

Jinhwan notices it as well, reminds Hanbin of how much he’s blooming every time they see each other. He kisses compliments onto Hanbin’s lips, brushes sweet nothings into Hanbin’s hair, smites doubt from its sinful place in Hanbin’s mind just by lacing their fingers together. Jinhwan isn’t a god, so he can’t make Hanbin feel like nothing is ever wrong, but Jinhwan does a damned good job of achieving something close.

And Hanbin does his best to do the same, to stay connected to Jinhwan in whatever little way possible because contact is to Jinhwan what IV drips are to sickly patients. Draping his arm over Jinhwan’s shoulder, touching knees under a table, outright embracing Jinhwan from behind and fully enjoying the fresh scent of Jinhwan’s shampooed hair. Hanbin had slept over at Jinhwan’s house that particular night, doing nothing other than hold each other with a few words exchanged like the boyfriends they giddily acknowledge they are.

Hanbin, even by the approaching summer, still asks himself if he’s living in a dream. In some ways, he is. Jinhwan is a dream, happiness is a dream, so having both must surely equate to nothing less than a dream. But Jinhwan is still there, still with Hanbin in some way, ready to help him remember the solid and real ground they tread together.

Another set of successful exams sets the tone for the rest of summer, full of scorching temperatures and other kinds of unspeakable heat. Hanbin wills himself to never forget the way Jinhwan looks at him when they stumble into his bedroom with hands in places they’d never been before.

“My parents are in the city for the week,” is all Jinhwan says before Hanbin is crashing into him, like a meteor locked in orbit for millennia by the time it has the freedom to fall.

Jinhwan is an unexplored planet, a solar system, the entire fucking universe because Hanbin always learns something new about him every time they kiss without clothes, or dirty the bedsheets more times than can be counted. Maybe he can’t count because his skull is just too astonished at the fact they’d do this at all.

Protests still come out of his mouth sometimes, questions of whether what they’re doing is okay and if Jinhwan is okay and Jinhwan just kisses him, expertly and sound, and tells Hanbin, “It’s okay. I’m okay. Are you okay?”

Nothing could be more beautiful-sounding than Jinhwan’s voice, Hanbin decides for the millionth time. It’s beautiful in the way it carries itself as upright as Jinhwan, in the way it sings to grandmothers during town-wide holiday parties and tells Hanbin he’s worth every second he’s lived. It’s beautiful when it tinges Jinhwan's heavy breathing over Hanbin late at night, and when it greets Hanbin good morning with the childish glee reminiscent of old photo albums.

There’s nothing Jinhwan could say with that voice and those lips and sound nothing less than angelic, but his simple, quiet reassurances are what Hanbin loves the most.

“I’m more than okay,” is what Jinhwan drags out of Hanbin with a few well-placed touches. The week of bliss ends too quickly for Hanbin to accept the mark on reality he and Jinhwan had made.

The edge of summer is as sharp as a knife, but it’s rousing enough for Hanbin to finally grow up and tell Jinhwan, “I love you.”

How the human embodiment of the universe can look as ecstatic as if he’d been given the universe itself boggles Hanbin’s mind, but that’s the only way he can describe how Jinhwan’s eyes light up like two north stars and how his smile could possibly turn any more blinding than it usually is. He tackles Hanbin into the pillows, planting his lips everywhere they can reach when they’re not open and allowing Jinhwan’s endless supply of laughter to escape.

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that,” Jinhwan says, lips hovering above Hanbin’s – the only place he hasn’t attacked yet in his tirade. “I love you too.”

If this is a dream, Hanbin doesn’t want to wake up.

 

 

 

But he does wake up, as does Jiwon and Jinhwan. It’s Hanbin’s first year in high school, and Jinhwan’s last, and all three of them are worried about the future for completely different reasons.

Hanbin’s ambitions are limited to accounting and management; it’s mundane and achievable enough to be satisfactory, but formidable and lucrative enough to be worth the hard work. He thought of becoming a lyricist and composer at one point, something Jiwon brought up because he’s the same, but Hanbin’s mother deemed it too high-risk and potentially unprofitable, so it’s never taken stage at the forefront of Hanbin’s mind. Settle down, have a family, and live comfortably – that’s all Hanbin wants.

The first time Jinhwan brings up his dreams of becoming a singer and dancer and making it big in the city, Hanbin actually laughed, thinking it was a joke. The second time Jinhwan brings it up is a couple days later, when giving Hanbin the cold shoulder becomes too difficult for both of them to maintain.

“I’m being serious,” Jinhwan says. “I’m planning on going to Seoul to audition and become trainee.”

“I’ve lived in Seoul for fifteen years, and the only thing I found was a place I never want to return to,” says Hanbin. “Seoul makes you feel like everything is at your fingertips, like you can do anything if you smile and wink long enough, but you’re really just a bug at the bottom of the shoes of the rich and privileged.”

“I get that, I do,” insists Jinhwan even though Hanbin is sure he really doesn’t get it. “But I’ve been dancing for years, and I’m good at it. I’ve been singing for a little less than that, but I’ve improved so much over a short period of time, so I think that this dream—”

“That’s exactly what it is,” snaps Hanbin, “a dream,” with more force than he intends. He knows he’s stepping so far out of line that he’s already a continent away. But he can barely think straight when he’s overwhelmed with the worry of losing Jinhwan to the city like he’d lost his father and part of his mother. “All you do is play around with anything that interests you and pays attention to you, and you chase dreams you have barely have a chance of achieving instead of stopping to see what reality is actually like. That kind of thinking is going to put you in danger one day.”

Jinhwan’s face flushes red for all the wrong reasons, and Hanbin so desperately wants to wipe it all off like it’s just face paint, like this is all just an elaborate set-up for a big joke.

“Is that what you think I think of you?” Jinhwan’s beautiful voice trembles into fragility, nothing like the bull-sized strength Hanbin had fallen for. “A plaything until I leave for the city?”

Hanbin hates the way it’s said with such inevitability, like Jinhwan had already planned on leaving the small town and Hanbin for dead.

He says, “You tell me.”

They break their cold shoulder record of two days with two months straight of saying nothing.

Poor Jiwon, having to play the role of mediator if there is any chance of saving what little is left between his friends. By Christmas-slash-New Year’s-slash-Hanbin’s birthday, they’re all okay again, albeit just barely. Hanbin and Jinhwan stop kissing, don’t hook their fingers anymore or sleep together, but they’re okay, and it’s enough of an illusion of peace to get all three of them through the winter.

 

 

 

December spills into the new year like an overfilled jug of water. Too much for too little.

When Hanbin returns from break with his grandparents, he doesn’t find Jinhwan at the dock because he finds Jinhwan at the back of the smoothie shop instead. The one-eyed cat being fed notices Hanbin before Jinhwan does.

“Welcome back,” Jinhwan says, not looking away from the cat. “How was the vacation?”

“Same old, same old.”

Hanbin notes every passing second by the time Jinhwan stands up and faces him. His height hasn’t changed, but nineteen looks so different from eighteen in the new broadness of Jinhwan’s shoulders, chest puffed more in sureness than exaggeration. Hanbin wants to correct himself because “same old” is a contradictory thing to say; oldness clearly doesn’t mean sameness, not in Jinhwan’s or his own case.

When Jinhwan takes Hanbin’s hand in his, Hanbin melts like the winter ready to bring about the spring. There are a thousand apologies that want to make themselves known, but “I’m sorry” is a difficult as “I love you” sometimes and Jinhwan gets that. Instead, Hanbin kisses Jinhwan against the brick wall of the back of the smoothie shop, relishing in the laughably familiar smile pressed against his own.

It isn’t intensely romantic by any means, not passionately urgent from the separation, especially not with the cat watching. But it’s endearingly messy and uncoordinated with Hanbin in the lead, a little sweet from the one smoothie flavor Jinhwan orders like it’s his religion, and it’s all as perfect as humanly possible. Because imperfections are okay. They’re always okay.

Later Jinhwan tells him that that was the first time Hanbin initiated a kiss, making Hanbin excited to go for a second round. Firsts are a once-in-a-lifetime thing, he knows, and he’s glad he did this one some justice.

 

 

 

The three of them hang out and goof off with Jinhwan as he so desires (which means often), but carefully enough to avoid the word “university” like the plague until results slink in by the second semester – Jinhwan’s last. They avoid that subject, too.

Jinhwan is accepted into his first choice, some mid-tier place in Seoul that specializes in music and arts, and isn’t stuffy enough to make tertiary education totally unappealing to him anymore. Hanbin learns to swallow Jinhwan’s unwavering stance on singing and dancing like bitter medicine, as Jinhwan does with Hanbin’s steadfastness to enter the suit-and-tie realm of corporate business. Loving someone, after all, isn’t about meeting someone where they are. It's about meeting them halfway.

“Where are you thinking of applying to in a couple years?” Jiwon asks Hanbin. Jinhwan is beside him, diligently working out the pricing of bus fares and plane tickets. “And don’t give me the ‘I haven’t thought about it’ crap. You’ve been thinking about college since middle school.”

“My _mom_ ’s been making me think about it since middle school,” Hanbin corrects him. “And we were thinking of some choices in Busan, Daejeon, maybe Pohang…” _Not Seoul_ is what he’s really trying to say, and they all know it. Jinhwan presses closer, as if not being glued at the hip will make both halves turn into thin air.

“But, like,” Jiwon looks genuinely confused, “your mom isn’t going to university.”

Hanbin raises a brow. “So?”

“So you should pick a place for yourself.”

“I think my mom’s choices are perfectly valid.”

“My brother didn’t let our parents pick his uni for him. I could probably be a tour guide from how much he gushes about his campus. He loves it and it makes him happy, and that’s what’s important, I think.”

Jinhwan makes a hooting sound at a discounted flight he landed. Hanbin is silent.

“Trust me,” Jiwon says. “You’ll be much happier when you’ve let go of the training wheels.”

Hanbin doesn’t know if it’s the training wheels he can’t let go of, or the brakes themselves. But he isn’t a starving artist. He needs to stop thinking so much in metaphors.

 

 

 

When Jinhwan graduates, he does it wearing the loose, cross-shaped earrings Hanbin gave him for Christmas even though the high school principal warned against it. Hanbin feels proud that he’s a part of Jinhwan’s unique rebellion until the end of it all.

He doesn’t give Jinhwan a bouquet of flowers when they meet outside the auditorium. He doesn’t kiss Jinhwan in congratulations like he wants to. But hugs are a must and aplenty for such a celebration, maybe some verbal remarks about how scary it is that Jinhwan is technically legal now. Giving Jinhwan a present will just cement the good-bye anyway.

“Congratulations,” Hanbin tells him after they hug for longer than most boys would, but then again they aren’t most boys. “You’ve made it to the end of high school.”

“It was a pretty perilous journey, I must admit,” says Jinhwan with a grin. “I’m glad I can look back on my high school days and not want to vomit from the misery.”

“Maybe with a drink or two, you’ll find something to vomit over.”

“Perhaps.” Jinhwan presses his finger against the patches on Hanbin’s jacket, stitched onto the left chest area. The pad of his thumb stays longer on the sun-shaped patch than any other. “Some memories are worth drinking for.”

 

 

 

The day before Jinhwan is to go to the airport, the three of them clamber onto their dock for the last time. Hanbin usually sits in the middle, but this time they decide that it’s more appropriate for Jinhwan to be there. It makes the effect of the foreignness of his crying more evenly spread.

“I’m going to miss you guys,” Jinhwan manages through the tears. Jiwon brings him to his chest as Hanbin holds Jinhwan’s hand. “It’s going to be so lonely all by myself.”

“Being alone doesn’t mean you should feel lonely,” says Hanbin. Jinhwan squeezes his hand tighter.

“We’ll text you every day,” promises Jiwon.

Jinhwan cries harder. “And you’ll send me photos?”

Jiwon hugs him closer. “If she doesn’t bite us, we’ll throw in selfies with the smoothie shop cat, too.”

At the airport, Hanbin tries his damned best not to be sad but it’s so hard not to be when his heart is being ripped in two. To not see Jinhwan waving hello at the school gates every morning. To not have Jinhwan drag him into impromptu dance meetings or hang-outs by the docks. To not hold Jinhwan like he’s nearly everything Hanbin needs to survive this little town and life's troubles. It’s all sad.

Hanbin knows he’s young, impressionable. That life will change and so will he and he will meet new people along the way. But even when he grows up, Hanbin is sure that the place Jinhwan has carved into his mind and heart will never heal over. It will always be there, waiting for something that will possibly never return.

Jinhwan doesn’t kiss Hanbin like the world will end tomorrow, nor does he kiss Hanbin like they’re even saying good-bye. They don’t ever get around to exchanging farewells. The gesture feels more like an apology than anything else, and in retrospect, Hanbin is thankful Jinhwan kisses him that way.

“Don’t give Jiwon too hard of a time while I’m away, okay?” Jinhwan stands right in front of the security check, ready to turn back into a dream. “And don’t slack off. I’ll haunt you in your sleep if you do.”

Hanbin rolls his eyes. The heat in his stomach is growing like a warning sign in neon lights. “You’ll haunt me in my sleep no matter what I do.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Jinhwan curves his palm onto Hanbin’s cheek. “You’re amazing. You’ll be amazing in the future, too. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m a believer of conspiracy theories, don’t you know? It’s hard for me to be sure of anything these days.”

The corner of Jinhwan’s mouth raises, a half-smile of the whole Hanbin has always seen.

And then they part, never looking back.

 

 

 

(Okay, maybe they look back occasionally. They can’t be dramatic enough not to.)

 

 

 

The end of Hanbin’s third year of high school exactly feels like that: the end of a school year before a summer leading up to another school year, just in a different place this time. Hanbin finally decided where he wants to go for college, but nothing else worth noting had happened.

Sunsets at the dock don’t stop being beautiful when Hanbin watches them by himself. They don’t replace what, or who, is no longer there, either. But he still goes there, diligently, every single day in the hope that what left will return soon.

There is no one else to say good-bye to Hanbin at the airport beside his mother and Hanbyul, who’s getting too big to be carried now; that doesn’t stop Hanbin from trying before he isn’t able to anymore.

“Not that you aren’t already,” his mother tells him as she holds him close, “but you’re going to be amazing. I miss you already.”

“I’ll be back by winter,” he says.

“It’s a big and scary world out there. Are you sure you’re ready to handle it?”

“Probably not.”

“No one is the first time around,” she says, chuckling at his honesty. “You’ll get the hang of it. Update me as soon as you land, okay?”

He nods, hugging his mother and Hanbyul one more time, before walking to the security check.

“Pretty early for a flight,” the guard says as Hanbin hands over the passport and flight ticket. It’s nearly empty in the airport at this time. “Seoul, eh? What’re you going to do there?”

“Go to college, fall in love, follow my dreams.” Hanbin bows when the guard hands everything back. “Same old, same old.”

The guard smiles a smile that isn’t nearly as bright as what Hanbin is used to. “Well, good luck to you, kiddo. You’ve got a whole world ahead of you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> It doesn't matter what kind of future you choose for yourself, as long as you are happy, because happiness is all that matters in the end. Thank you so much for reading, and let me know what you think if you have the time. x
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> [tumblr](https://aijee.tumblr.com)


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